Sacred Burial Grounds (An FBI Romance Thriller (book 2)) (34 page)

“I came home
.” He hated that he just lied to her.

“Callen, look at me,” she said, drawing his focus back to her face. “You can be honest with me. I’m going to do anything I can to keep you protected and out of trouble, but you have to trust me with it.”

He felt panic rising in his chest at the thought of her knowing why he went to the bar. Maybe he could just skip the details. “I wasn’t tired, so I swung over to the bar for a few beers.”

“Who saw you there?
” Elizabeth inquired.

“There were a few people there. Kaya Cheek waited on me, and one of my deputies was having a drink with his girlfriend. I paid my tab
, and I came home. That’s the complete truth.”  He only held back the minor embarrassing details, but she didn’t need to know that.

Elizabeth nodded feeling his trepidation. “Let’s try this,” she said, nodding to her husband to signal she had it under control. “How about you forget I’m here as the FBI, and just talk to me like I’m your sister-in-law.”

Whitefox laughed. Yeah, except that was a far worse scenario. How was he going to explain he was out looking for women, because he needed another woman to help him forget her? He looked down at her hand holding his and weighed his options.

Elizabeth tucked his hair behind his ear, trying to see his face as she waited patiently. Getting up she closed the door, hoping he would open up if it were just the two of them. There was a red flush to his skin, and somehow she didn’t think it was the beer. Once she returned to sit beside him, she took his hand again
, this time their fingers twining together. “I’m ready to listen any time you're ready to trust me to help you carry it. We’re family, Callen. I have your back.”

Whitefox just figured he’d just say it and get it over with and tell her. “I went out looking to get laid, okay? Because watching you and my brother together got to me, and I just didn’t want to spend the night alone
!” He snapped it out and waited for the judgment, as he felt his face burn with the embarrassment at the declaration. “It’s not easy watching you two together.”

“Okay,” she said
and nothing more. Elizabeth just continued to hold his hand and offer him support, rubbing her free hand up and down his arm to share comfort.

“I see what my brother has with you, and it made me feel empty and hollow inside. I just wanted to feel something tonight other than completely alone.” There he said it all and now
, he’d deal with the look that he was sure to find waiting for him.

Elizabeth placed her hand on his flushed cheek. Of anyone, she understood his pain. Both she and her husband had both been down that road before. “And you're ashamed of
wanting to feel?” she asked quietly.

“
No. I’m ashamed that I’ve fallen hard for you, and that I want it more than anything else in my life,” he paused before continuing, “Don’t worry, Elizabeth. I won’t betray him and do anything stupid. I have better control of myself than I did when I was eighteen, despite how I feel about you.”

Elizabeth knew how much it took him to admit what he told her, and she could see the anguish in his face. He was waging a war inside, and it was tearing him apart. “Callen, it’s okay. I trust you completely
, and I don’t think your brother would fault you for feeling what you feel inside. Love is love.”

He looked up surprised
at how she handled his words, and she wasn’t going to judge or be angry with him.

“I appreciate you telling me the truth, and I’ve been there myself. There’s nothing to hide from, or feel shame about. Y
ou went and grabbed a few beers with your deputy and came home. That’s what I’m putting in the official report. The rest is a personal conversation between you and me, and it’ll stay that way. Call it what you want, but it’s ours and no one else’s.”

Something in him lightened up at the idea she was going to cover for him, and not put what he just said in a report for her husband to read. The mere fact she was protecting the delicate relationship that they were rebuilding meant a lot. “Thank you, Lyzee.”

Elizabeth gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I’m here for you, Callen. I told you, I have your back, so when you're ready, please continue. You can trust me with your secrets.”

“I parked my truck
and headed up the walkway to the house. Next, I opened the door with my key, but before I did, I felt off. I felt like I was being watched. I thought it was because I had a few beers at first, but now I know he was probably watching me, to see my reaction to his little present.”

Elizabeth felt the panic start deep in her chest, “Being watched?”
Right at that moment fear filled her as her husband was outside alone, waiting for the tech team. She jumped up and rushed from the room to get outside to the driveway.

Ethan Blackhawk
was sitting in the front seat of the Mustang, his back to the driver’s window and legs outside the car, talking on the phone. The killer was hiding in the tree line, and he now had a clear shot at his back and heart through the car.

Elizabeth vaulted the rail
and landed hard but continued towards her husband. From the corner of her peripheral, she saw the telltale glint. In the brush, there was a scope trained at either her or her husband. The commotion startled her husband, causing him to stand, as she finally reached him. The shattering sound broke the silence of the night, and the last thought was she hoped she was in time. Pulling Ethan by the shirt and across her body, they both hit the ground hard, her body absorbing most of the impact. Yeah, this was going to hurt in the morning.  Elizabeth’s heart pounded in her chest, as she looked up at the driver’s window, and then the passenger door where the bullet finally embedded.

“Stay inside Callen,” she yelled
, looking up at her husband lying across her. “Holy shit, Ethan! Please tell me you’re okay.” Her hands roamed his face and neck, praying there wouldn’t be any blood and she would have been in time.

Blackhawk nodded, as he moved off her body. Immediately
, he drew his weapon and kept her down with his hand. The silence of the night was filled with birds and wildlife that were frightened by the single gunshot. Now there were footfalls through the trees surrounding his brother’s house. Whoever had just tried to kill him was now running from the scene, uncaring that his location was being given away by his hasty retreat. 

“Are you both okay?” shouted Callen from inside his house. He had his rifle and was ready to head out the door after his sister-in-law when he heard the shot. Instinct had him on the floor, back to the wall.

“Yeah, we’re okay,” she yelled back, wondering if she was, since her whole life just flashed before her eyes, or her life with her husband had anyway. She almost had become a single parent in the span of a heartbeat.

Blackhawk was badly shaken. His wife just saved his life. The bullet that shattered his window almost stole his life away. “My damn car,” he muttered, because he wasn’t quite ready to think about what would have been if she
had been slower.

Elizabeth sat with her back to the side of the car trying to get her heart to stop pounding like a drum in her chest
. It was obvious how close they’d come.

“Yeah, my damn husband.”

Ethan Blackhawk called in everybody free on the tech team and issued the order that everyone on scene be armed and wearing Kevlar. No exceptions allowed. The killer was playing for keeps and taking pot shots at the FBI. There was intense hate for whomever was playing this game, Had it not been for his wife, he might not be leading the assignment, but been riding in the ME van in a body bag. There was one word to describe how he felt inside.

S
haken.

The team arrived shortly with
everyone suited up, and they broke off to take care of the surrounding area. They were looking for any trace the killer had left behind in his attempt at their boss’s life. 

When the tech group found it, they motioned to the Blackhawks. Both moved out to the clump of trees and scanned the location. There was very little damage to the grass and underbrush. Whoever had laid in wait knew how to leave the least amount of trace to where he was hiding.

“Tell me he didn’t police his brass,” Elizabeth asked, as she watched the techs gathering anything they could find that the killer left behind.

“Nothing Director Special Agent Blackhawk,” he answered. “He took the casing with him.”

“Tread marks?” she asked, hopefully.

“There aren’t any. It’s like he was wearing tread-less soled shoes. Perhaps a moccasin like shoe?”

“Son of a bitch,” she muttered. “Keep looking and find me something. I get downright bitchy when people take shots at Ethan,” she said, jerking her head towards her husband and walking away angrily. Now she was pondering the point that the killer was possibly wearing moccasins, like a Native. Part of her wanted to think he was, but then again she could visualize the woman they just found. Maybe the killer was playing dress up too.

Blackhawk nodded at his team and followed his wife. “Elizabeth, your arm’s bleeding,” he said softly, taking her by the wrist.

“What?” she looked at her elbow. “Yeah, I landed on the gravel,” she answered like it was nothing. “This entire thing has me on edge, Ethan,” she said, looking up at him.

“Me to
o, he’s deviating from his norm. We may have to watch all our backs. I was worried about you, but he’s now targeting me and my brother too.”

“I don’t think I’m the target. This isn't about me
. It’s about you and Callen somehow. This is becoming very personal now, and I need to know why.”

He didn’t say anything. Blackhawk
knew that an attempt at her would hurt him more than an attempt at his own life. Elizabeth was stubborn enough that she would put herself in front of him to protect him, and he wasn’t giving her the information to do that. Now he was going to have to be extra diligent keeping her safe. There was really only one kink in his armor, and she was it. If the killer hurt her he’d be lost.

“I need the profile, Ethan.”

Blackhawk led his wife to the back of a tech van, making her sit while he retrieved the first aid kit. While he worked on her elbow, he kept her busy with his assessment. “Okay, I can give you what I have for now. The problem I’m having is because he’s killing two races, I can’t be sure of his ethnicity, at least not one hundred percent sure at this time.”

Elizabeth trusted his
instincts; he was damn good at this part of his job. “Just give me what you have Ethan, because now he’s shooting at my husband and that pisses me off,” she said watching him dump peroxide on her elbow.

“He’s killing both American Indian and Caucasian women
and that tells me that he relates with both ethnicities, so possibly we have a mixed race male. The curious part is the other women were found in regular clothes, or with the clothing around their bones. This woman was dressed up as a Native woman in ethic garb, so he seems to be telling us something. I just don’t know what it is yet.”

“Okay, I’m with you.
” Elizabeth waited for him to continue.

“The crime scenes aren’t organized. Look at the pit we dug up with his bodies. They were stacked; they weren’t prearranged or ordered in any way to symbolize anything. Other than the medicine wheel, he doesn’t seem to be hyper controlled. I’m going to say that makes him of average intelligence and not older than mid-thirties. The more organized, generally the older the killer.”

“What else can you tell me about him?”

“Right now I think he’s the average man,
and we wouldn’t even notice him if we stood beside him on the street. I think he’s playing this game spontaneously and just winging it,” he pulled out a bandage. “The bodies of the victims aren’t mutilated, so I’m ruling out schizophrenia, but obviously he has to have some mental illness. You don’t just go killing pregnant women without being a bit over the edge of sanity. The victims aren’t dismembered or hacked apart. One wound only as if he’s controlled, and that’s it. For now he appears to have his mental capacity. Although taking shots at me in the middle of the night shows he’s getting more out of control and desperate, and he failed. That’s going to stir him up and set him off. He sees us as a threat now, and he’s going to continue his killing and try and eliminate anyone that stands between him and his goal.”

“Are we sure the killer is a male?” Elizabeth remembered one assignment she worked almost a decade ago
, where a woman was killing pregnant women.

“Here’s where I’m sketchy. The killer is abducting women, so I say male, but there isn’t any sexual assault that we’re aware of as of yet. The partially decayed victim couldn’t tell us, the other woman was
clean; it’ll come down to this girl. If there is proof of rape, we have a male.”

“Tell me how it could be a woman.”

“The one sticking point that keeps catching for me is the killing of pregnant women. Generally a killer is going to go after what they relate to or want. So, do we have a woman killing these pregnant women for a reason like her need to eliminate others that have pregnancies where she can’t? Is it a woman destroying what is just out of her grasp?  I don’t know yet, I still need more. When you add in that she’s going after my brother and me a woman just doesn’t fit. We only had one woman in common ever, Kaya Cheek.”